Stargirl 4

What qualities makes you a star? What do you offer the world that's unique ~ totally your own?

When I consider these questions, I find myself thinking that there's nothing about me that's so unique that I'm important or needed in this world. Truly, life would go on without me. That's not depression talking, it's a kind of realism. Yet... yet.... it doesn't tell the whole story. It leaves out some significant pieces of the picture that I'm part of.

Unique about me ~ well, doing this blog. Others may be doing something similiar, but they aren't doing the same blog. Another unique quality: being the mother of my daughter. She is who she is because I am who I am ~~ and because I've been a significant part of her life. No one else could have interacted with her, taught her, loved her, the way I have. I also have a unique skill set ~ not an odd one, just my own particular combination of skills that make me a unique friend, teacher, partner, parent, healer, learner. All ME.

So, what makes YOU unique? What's your inner star?

Stargirl 3

"At the same time we held back. Because she was different. Different. We had no one to compare her to, no one to measure her against. She was unknown territory. Unsafe. We were afraid to get too close."

~ Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

Have you ever met someone who throws you so off-kilter that you don't know how to react or interact with him or her? Have you ever been that person for someone else? Different. Odd. Unsafe. Undefinable. Someone who also make you think, makes you question your definition of yourself and the world around you, makes you see it all in a different light. Those people are the gems in our lives. They are the creative and free spirits that give us hope as much as they make us shudder with the edginess of their difference.

Do you want to be counted as one of the different ones? Why or why not?

Stargirl 2

"We wanted to define her, to wrap her up as we did each other, but we could not seem to get past 'weird' and 'strange' and 'goofy'. Her ways knocked us off balance. A single word seemed to hover in the cloudless sky over the school:

HUH?"

~~ Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

Here she is again, that difficult-to-define Stargirl. As time progresses, being difficult to define means that the definition can become something like: "odd" or "crazy". Others have difficult capturing a clear image. She's ethereal. She is not like everyone else. Jealousy dictates at least some of the words. How do you work around the fact that she keeps you off balance? That she is both as attractive and as repulsive as a magnet? Our minds cannot deal with it.

What throws you off balance? Who do you know with characteristics that you find attractive yet are afraid of?

Stargirl

"She was elusive, She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew."                                               ~~ Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

Words used to describe Stargirl strike chords deep within our own psyche: "She was today. She was tomorrow." Who wouldn't want to have those words used to describe them? Someone who wields so much power of diversity, influence and change? Even so, she is observed, noted, labeled. Stargirl is a dream.... a different sort of person.... one who defies definition.

How would someone define you? Would that be different from how you would define yourself?